Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

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MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAX NATIONS.
BOOK the high estate which was hers before Zeus vanquished the
IL ,. Titans ; but she remains mighty as ever, in the heavens, on
the earth, and in the sea. She is the giver of victory in war,
the helper of kings in the ministration of justice, the guardian
of the flocks and of the vineyards ; and thus she is named
pre-eminently Kourotrophos, the nurse and the cherisher of
men. But these great powers could scarcely fail to throw
over her an air of mystery and awe. She would be some-
times the solitary inhabitant of a dismal region, caring
nothing for the sympathy or the love of others ; and the very
help which with her flaming torch she gives to Demeter
would make her a goddess of the dark nether world to which
she leads the sorrowing mother. Her ministers therefore
must be as mysterious as herself, and thus the Kouretes and
Kabeiroi become the chosen servants of her sacrifices. Like
Artemis, she is accompanied by hounds, not flashing-footed
like that which Prokris received from the twin-sister of
Phoibos, but Stygian dogs akin to Kerberos and the awful
hounds of Yama. Only one step more was needed to reach
that ideal of witchcraft which is exhibited in its most exalted
form in the wise woman Medeia. It is from a cave, like
that in which Kirke and Kalypso dwell, that she marks the
stealing away of Persephone, and her form is but dimly seen
as she moves among murky mists. She thus becomes the
spectral queen who sends from her gloomy realm vain dreams
and visions, horrible demons and phantoms, and who imparts
to others the evil knowledge of which she has become possessed
herself. Her own form becomes more and more
fearful. Like Kerberos, she assumes three heads or faces,
which denote the monthly phases of the moon—the horse
with its streaming mane pointing to the moon at its full,
and the snake and the dog representing its waxing and
waning, until it disappears from the sight of men.
Aitemis. In some traditions Artemis is the twin sister of Phoibos,
with whom she takes her place in the ranks of correlative
deities. In others she is born so long before him that she can
aid Leto her mother at the birth of Phoibos— a myth which
speaks of the dawn and the sun as alike sprung from the
night. Thus her birthplace is either Delos or Ortygia, in